


The Faro-fixer

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, Accidental Outing, Cannibalism, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, M/M, POV Multiple, Torture, Violence, season five
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 11:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2023824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>season five au - soon to be blasted to smithereens by the premiere - inspired by the new comic-con banner</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Faro-fixer

**Author's Note:**

> The bulk of this story was started early this week, and minor adjustments have been made today, there are no spoilers in this beyond what was seen in the comic-con trailer (and I guarantee you it'll be nothing like the showrunners) - but if you're leery about that sort of thing you might want to skip this fic

The easiest wedge is Carl – everyone in the boxcar knows it – it has nothing to do with the boy’s stamina, his ability to withstand pain or their view of him as an individual - although Carl might not realise that - and everything to do with the fact he’s the youngest wolf pup in a den of killers, the one person _everyone_ is protective of. 

Gareth’s aware of it. 

He can see it reflected in their actions: the way Carl’s shoved behind Rick and Michonne when the train door flies opens, how Ford creeps in from the edges, the way Daryl takes centre stage, practically daring Gareth to take him first.  “Come on,” the archer rattles off, eyes slitted like a snake, shoulders high. “Come at me, man.”

Gareth can see the tension in their frames, the muscles bunched, ready to launch into aggressive action, and shakes the duffle bag, let’s the chains rattle and clash before tossing the bag onto the floor of the boxcar, where they spill onto the knotted hardwood.  Food tumbles out as well, powdered milk, some water – spelt bread that’s spotted green at the edges because nothing lasts in this climate; it spoils within a day or two of Meredith’s baking.

If he took the boy first he might shatter them apart; they’d break at the first scream to vent the air; they’d be docile to prevent any further harm to the child but Gareth’s not interested in the kid, per se, and this isn’t some interrogation technique where the end game is information. Gareth has reams of information at his fingertips, entire libraries that do him no good – it’s food that’s in short demand - information is only useful long term and short-term occupies all of Gareth’s immediate concerns.  Interrogation techniques?  It’s not what Rick and his company think at all.

Glenn and Maggie might have filled them in. It depends on how much they managed to glean, the screams that end abruptly and the smell of burning meat – whether the gap between those two events has been linked in their minds or not - and there is a significant gap, draining a corpse of blood, hooking the carcass, flaying the meat from the bone, tenderising the flesh takes time and muscle; it takes concentrated effort.  Gareth doesn’t care what they’ve managed to intuit, the end result is they know they’re in trouble and that’s enough to make them savage.

Gareth tries to be humane when the opportunity affords itself - a blow to the back of the skull, never aware of their future’s end, like cattle or sheep you don’t want a burst of adrenalin compromising the taste – but people aren’t so trusting these days.  They arrive at Terminus on high-guard, turn against their hosts at the slightest provocation.  The first suspicious event that catches their attention and mayhem explodes.  It ends with casualties on Gareth’s side - he loses more of his own people every day - their blood spilt for the sake of strangers, their names inscribed on the wall of remembrance, like Alex, like so many others lost, a candle burning bright where a body once stood. 

And the truth is, they _still_ recruit; despite that.  They take people in when their numbers dwindle low.  But those recruits need to be of a certain mind-set, have a willingness to survive; they need to know the facts and figures, the vanishing food supply, the spoiled meat versus healthy food quota, they need to let their morality slip away.  They weren’t always like this – honest to god they weren’t - but Gareth views himself as a survivor first.  His crash-site is not the alpine slopes of the Andes, the threat of slow starvation, but the evergreen fields of Georgia and the threat of slow starvation.  In Gareth’s mind: the only distinction is here - there is no hope of rescue. 

They take people in, but any one who tries to rob them, who passes judgement, anyone who _kills Gareth’s people,_ takes a life on these grounds - is spitted roast.

It’s a dog eat dog world.

If Gareth really wanted to work them over, psychologically, he never would have allowed the kid to enter the boxcar in the first place.  He would have kept them separated, agreeable with the threat of violence to a child. But Gareth tries to be humane when circumstances allow and he hopes Rick appreciates the distinction, knowing the courtesy exists.

When the train door flies open the boy is shoved behind his father, out of reach, he’s wedged between Rick and Michonne, nothing but steely hate on his freckled face. 

Carl barely comes to Rick’s shoulders, whippet thin and gangly – Gareth lets his gaze rake over him, thinking about fat to muscle ratio - and overlooks the men entirely to scrutinize the women. Michonne bares her teeth, Maggie, Sasha, and Rosita roll onto the balls of their feet like a gathering wave, a force of kinetic energy; they’re muscular, sleek, filthy as the men, and Gareth dismisses them, lets his attention fall onto Ford and Eugene instead.

Thoughtfully, Gareth clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, let’s a smile shine, college-boy bright.

“You wanna chat to someone?” Daryl asks softly, all sibilant. “I’m a motor-mouth, sweetheart. Come speak with me.”

Gareth snaps his attention to the archer – snagged by the mocking endearment – by the bright avarice in the archer’s eyes. Surprisingly, so does the ringleader, as if Daryl said something unexpected, out of character. Rick shifts warningly, face etched into stone.  “Daryl,” he says, tone sharp. 

It cracks like a whip in the boxcar, no mistaking the man in charge, and Daryl flinches in reaction, as if he felt the lash of rebuke in all manner of ways. 

Gareth examines Daryl from head to foot, makes a teasing show of it, until his gaze resets on lips and mouth, the promise of a warm tongue; Alex was a motor-mouth, too, a good boy from the mid-west.  Loss and rage builds, threatening to consume him, until Gareth has no choice but to lock it away inside a cavernous pit.

Slowly, Gareth forces a smirk.  “Well hear now…I always wanted my own Huckleberry.”

“No,” Rick says.  The length of his arm stretches out, bars off Carl and Michonne entirely and curls around Daryl’s bicep, holding the archer fast. “You want to talk to someone, then it’s me.”

“You’re not in charge, in case that wasn’t apparent. ” Gareth’s flanked by two men with automatic rifles, has all the numbers on his side and little tolerance when his own dead need to be buried. Gareth fixes his attention on Daryl, mouth twisting as he motions towards the handcuffs:  “ _Sweetheart,”_ he parrots, in the exact tone Daryl used, “put some bling on, please, you might as well be dressed up for the occasion.” 

The archer might not have been Gareth’s first selection but the convenient fact is – somebody’s taken effort to tenderize him already.

 

 

***

 

“Goddamn it,” Rick snarls.  He slams a palm against the door, breathing hard. The cuffs on Daryl’s wrists weren’t police issue, the chain-link too long, good for strangulation or entangling a person’s arm if the chance presented itself, not that it had. The door rattles with the impact, stirs up dust and chokes the air.  “Goddamn it,” he repeats, softer now. 

“What will they do?” Michonne asks. Carl is still behind her, the rise and fall of his chest rapid.

“They haven’t taken anyone from this boxcar yet,” Maggie says after a pause, and shrugs, helplessly.  “There’s another one: they take from over there. We hear their voices every so often.”

“You mean we hear their screams,” Ford corrects, sourly, and turns away, checking on Eugene.

Rick pivots away from the door.  “Have you spoken to them?”

Maggie shakes her head.  There’s a strand of hair stuck to her cheekbone, curving toward her mouth like a china-bone fracture. Maggie’s body is hooked toward Glenn, her attention fixed on Rick. “Whoever they are, they’re too far away to speak to.”

“We don’t hear them much,” Glenn murmurs, hand on her hip, his fingers flexing.  “At least, not anymore.”

“We heard them,” Rick adds grimly.  “We ran past their location when Gareth’s men were corralling us in.”  Heard their cries, saw their bones on the cracked concrete, skeletal remains left to bleach in the sun, picked clean by the buzzards.

“Whatever they do to him,” says a new voice, drawn out and pained.  “I don’t think it will end with a tickle and a kiss.”

“Who are you?” 

It’s borderline civil.  Maggie might have vouched for the newbie’s in the boxcar but Rick doesn’t know them from a bar of soap.  His hackles are raised, aware of their proximity and unable to tone it down, Rick’s been hyper-vigilant since the Claimers, colour and faces, items and belongings stark in his range of vision. The level of sarcasm in her voice has Rick turning to face her.

“Tara,” she provides.  Her eyes glint like a burnt cutlass, tone waspish. “Do you always expect him to volunteer for that shit?  Or is it a numbers game?  Twosomes and threesomes everywhere and he the odd man out?”

“What?” Rick says, blind-sided.

“Tara!” Glenn rebukes.

Rick takes stock, tries to see their position from an outsider’s point of view: Michonne, Carl and Rick clumped together – shoulders blocked as a threesome - Maggie and Glenn as a duo.  Rosita, Ford and Eugene as the next threesome, huddled together, and Sasha and Bob as a duo.  Tara left out by herself and Daryl, in that cold empty space - slightly forward and slightly apart - baiting Gareth to take him first; the only ‘singles’ in the boxcar line-up.  There’s an underground belief someone partnered, married, with child or family has a life more valuable than someone who is single. Don’t kill me please; I have a wife and kid.  Kill them instead…they’re not as important.  Generally speaking, the last sentence is never tagged on but the sentiment is implied: I will be missed, you won’t.

Rick’s been a police officer for years – he’s seen husbands beat their wives blue, children with fractured bones, dislocated shoulders, adults who have no business being parents – and the partnered versus single argument is a waste of collective space.  Some people are shits, born shits, will always be shits, will marry and become even greater shits – and some people are worth their weight in gold - but will sail on in life in solitude and remain comfortable with the fact. It doesn’t mean they’re less ‘valuable’.  I will be missed isn’t exclusive to the ‘partnered’ and ‘married’ club, to imply it is the worst kind of hubris.  And the thing about Tara is that she’s new – she doesn’t know crap about their dynamics yet – she’s relying on body language and first impressions and that’s a turncoat line, treacherous as quicksand. 

Daryl’s family.  Daryl’s _everything_ to Rick, and this is the second time in twenty-four hours he’s pulled the same goddamn stunt.  

Rick’s chat about brotherhood didn’t quite hit the mark, it appears, and if there’s anyone in the boxcar line-up who actually believes that crap about the value of ‘partners’ versus ‘singles’, then it’s the man who volunteered to climb out. 

Rick needs to do something about Daryl’s perception of self-worth, he reasons, and he needs to change it fast. But he doesn’t need to hear it from this girl – or anyone else who wasn’t there when the Claimers hit. “You want to say that again?” Rick asks, dangerously.

“Oh, for sure, _sweetheart_ ,” Tara straightens, chin raised, her voice a perfect parody.   “Let’s throw the queer contingent under the bus first.”

Rick blinks then blinks again.  He’s not sure what frequency Tara’s operating on, but it occurs to him she might be tweaked a little to the left, firing on all cylinders.

“Daryl’s not gay,” Glenn blurts out, bewildered, and glances between the two of them in the gathering silence

Tara looks around, at the sub-cliques in their main gathering, and says bluntly, “Hello?  Are you kidding me?  How long have you guys been together and you never noticed?”

Rick spent an entire afternoon walking with Shane in the woods, the two of them searching for Sophia, talking about high-school conquests and banging a female teacher.  Guy stuff.  Swapping war stories.  Everyone in the group has done it.  Glenn asked Rick for advice when he first met Maggie.  Both Dale and Hershel spoke of their wives, fondly, and in remembrance. Axel tried to hit on both Beth _and_ Carol, Rick’s shared a boxcar with Ford for just over an hour and has been bombarded with more inappropriate breast jokes then he’s ever cared to listen too, and the only person who’s never alluded to a past relationship, with anyone, period, is Daryl.

He’s never joked about tripping over women’s breasts like Ford; never bragged about sinking into ‘pussy’ like Shane. Out of their entire ensemble, Daryl’s the one male who walked away from a sexual invitation. He didn’t even consider it.

Tara tilts her head, bites her bottom lip as she examines Rick intently, and amends.  “Oh.  It’s occurred to _you_.”

“It’s never mattered to me one way or another,” Rick rasps out  - and it’s the truth, Rick doesn’t care one whit – they don’t talk about that stuff. Daryl doesn’t volunteer, Rick doesn’t ask, and this isn’t the appropriate time.  “And we didn’t _give_ him to Gareth.”

Tara snorts.  “How incredibly progressive of you – not caring one way or another - I don’t know if I should applaud you for being easy-going or flip you off for being such a moron.  I’ve been out since I was eleven years old, kissed Katie Roberts near the bike-shed at school.  My sister knew. My whole family knew. They didn’t care either but I could _talk_ to them about it.” There’s a slither of light that bisects the boxcar, like a light-sabre from Star Wars film, luminescent blue. It feels like a trench, a border that can’t be crossed.  “You might be more comfortable not talking about it, you might not _care_ one way or another – but believe me ‘Mr. Accepting’ – it’s _relevant_ to him.”

“He’s not ‘out’,” Rick grates, irritated. “He’s not ‘out’ to anyone.”

“Daryl’s gay?” Glenn mouths, silently.

Rick takes a step forward, anger gathering under his skin.  He steps over that invisible border into Tara’s space, presses his face close.  “And if I thought you were genuinely concerned for Daryl, and not worried about yourself – thinking I might be the type of person who throws the ‘queer’ contingent under the bus – then you and I might have been friends.”

Daryl said they were friends.  Daryl said they were friends immediately, when Rick was still looking homicidal, when Maggie had barely finished speaking. Accepted them all, just like that.

Rick’s hands have knotted into fists; the cuffs pulled taut, digging into the fine bones of his wrists.  He feels like he scored a point off Tara in that last bout but Rick was hit by so many jabs in a row he’s still reeling from the impact. He has both height and bulk over Tara, but if the step into her personal space intimidated the woman it doesn’t show.

Tara’s eyes are wide, so dark they appear black in the dim light, like Japanese anime.  Her tone is conciliatory, as if a part of her felt the truth of Rick’s rejoinder, and her tone is simple, blunt with ferocious honesty.  “Okay…fine…but there’s a difference between accepting someone and just ignoring the issue entirely.”

Lori’s image swims before his mind, wilful neglect followed by so much regret it almost drowned Rick – and if that’s Tara’s closing statement – it’s a hell of a right hook. 

“I know that,” Rick says, and the words tumble from his mouth, weighted like river stones.  “I know that already.”

“Now everyone’s flaunted their dirty laundry,” Ford growls from the background.  “Can we _please_ discuss the escape plan?”

Plaintively, Glenn asks: “Daryl’s gay?”

 

 

***

 

Gareth isn’t certain about the archer’s age, the stubble on his face is salt and pepper, the hair greasy, too long. It ages him – he’d be deceptively young if it was cut short – but at this length he looks anywhere between early to mid forties.  Not so much lamb but mutton. The cheekbones are sharp enough to cut his fingertips on, though, and Gareth can appreciate that.  

His arms are cuffed when Terence kneecaps him, and the blow sends the man sprawling onto the ground.  Gareth wraps his hands in those filthy strands, jerks him upright onto his knees then applies downward pressure, yanking his hair, bending the spine in a perfect arc, stomach convex and bared as Daryl grimaces, mouth falling open under the unrelenting pressure, his neck a pale column. Gareth holds him there - an ode to sweet torment - then shoves a rag between his teeth, ties it off at the back, and drops him.  The archer lands half on his side, half on his shoulder blade, and rolls to his knees with an alacrity that Gareth notes absentmindedly.

The room is dark, cold, bare of accessories except for a series of hooks attached to the ceiling and a floor angled inward, a drain prominent in the centre.  The adjoining room, out of sight behind closed doors, has a carving table, bags and bags of salt piled in one corner, and a steel bathtub for curing the meat in. Miles and Terence move about at the edges of the room, their rifles held low to the ground but steady. The cuffs aren’t ideal for police work – much a weapon as they are a restraint – but when it comes to dangling large weights off a hook the extra length in the chain is ideal.

“In case you were in doubt,” Gareth says sadly, “I’m not into asking people questions, and when information is the last thing you want, all that screaming becomes tiresome.  Bite down on the rag when it gets too much.”

Daryl follows his line of sight, head tipped upward, and sees those hooks embedded in the ceiling. 

His vest is half falling off one shoulder, a cut above his brow and one eye swollen black; really, Gareth decides, he’s pretty as a picture.

“Hoist him up.”

It’s not as simple as all that – in truth, Gareth wasn’t expecting it to be - it takes a rifle butt to the solar plexus, a cross-hook to the left cheekbone, it takes all three of them heaving and hustling and scrabbling across the cement floor.  Even so, Miles ends up with a broken nose; Gareth takes a knee to the throat, wind-pipe crushing inward, vision a dark spiral until he can draw that first lurching breath, but the archer winds up exactly where he’s supposed to be, kicking from the roof-top like a cyclist without a bike.

“Jesusfuckingchrist,” Miles explodes. His nose is crooked, running bloody; he hits Daryl repeatedly from behind, targeting the spleen.

Terence, bent double with his hands braced against his knees, squints at Gareth pointedly. 

“That’s three against one.  You want the others out of that damn boxcar, then I suggest we gas ‘em into oblivion.”

Gareth laughs, soundlessly.  It feels like broken shards against his bruised throat.

Viciously, Miles lashes out a final time.

There’s an explosion of air bitten off behind the gag - Daryl’s biceps flex, hauling himself upward bodily, toward the hook - as if climbing away from the pain.  He hangs suspended for a minute then sinks, arms at full stretch, boots three inches off the ground.  He’s having difficulty breathing behind the gag, Gareth notes, almost as much trouble as Gareth is having breathing through his damn throat.  Suspension doesn’t help - pressure on lungs, diaphragm; the inexorable weight of his body will dislocate the shoulders eventually - there’s blood on one wrist, dripping down his forearm.  Gareth steps behind, taking over Miles’ position, both hands placed on Daryl’s hips to stop the dizzy spin.  Gareth plucks the rag hanging from the back pocket and wraps it around his palm carelessly. 

The journey is slow – surety in his touch – running his fingertips from hips to buttocks, to the softer more private flesh of the inner thigh.  Gareth traces downward, delicate over the back of the kneecap and firmer over the calf muscle, where he loops both hands in front of the shins to stop any donkey-kicks. The laces are crusted with mud, stiff under his fingers; Gareth knocks the boots off one at a time and uses Daryl’s own rag to tie his legs together at the ankle. 

“We meant no harm.  We opened our gates to you.  Your people attacked us.  Ford, Rosita – they reacted wrong – but I still have no idea what set your ringleader off.” 

They’re not the protagonists in this scenario – Gareth is sure of that.  But if they jump over wire fences, creep in through the backdoor like thieves, if they shoot up his backyard and stomp on the flowers, then Gareth is inclined to finish it.  Before this, the last group to arrive called themselves the Claimers – they lost a quarter of their number and left in haste after trying to rob the place – the Claimers steered well clear of Terminus ever since. The remaining prisoners have kept Gareth’s people fed in the interim; the last of their dwindling number locked away in a boxcar at the far end of the compound.

Gareth spins Daryl about slowly, listening to the groan of metal as the links twist together.  Balanced on his haunches, Gareth looks up the length of the splayed body and stands up slow, brushing against the same places in reverse, ankles to knees, knees to tender groin, groin to belly, belly to succulent ribs. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs with sharp teeth, “you smell so good.”


End file.
